11Yunmen's Two Sicknesses雲門兩病

Introduction 示眾

無身人患疾，無手人合藥，無口人服食，無受人安樂。且道：膏肓之疾，如何調理？

A man with no body falls ill. A man with no hands mixes the medicine. A man with no mouth swallows it. A man with no feeling is cured. So tell me: when the sickness has sunk into the bones, how do you treat it?

雲門大師云：「光不透脫，有兩般病。一切處不明，面前有物，是一。透得一切法空，隱隱地似有箇物相似，亦是光不透脫。又法身亦有兩般病。得到法身，為法執不忘，已見猶存，墮在法身邊，是一。直饒透得，放過即不可，子細點檢將來，有甚麼氣息，亦是病。」

Master Yunmen said: "When your light hasn't broken all the way through, there are two sicknesses. First: everywhere is dim, and something seems to stand in front of you. Even after you've seen that all things are empty, faintly, vaguely, it still feels like something is there. That too is the light failing to break through.

"And the dharma-body has two sicknesses of its own. First: you reach the dharma-body, but you can't drop your clinging to it. A trace of your 'self' still lingers, and you stay stuck on the edge of the dharma-body. Second: even if you do break through it, letting it slide won't do. Look closely. What breath of life is left in it? That too is a sickness."

Verse 頌

森羅萬象許崢嶸，
透脫無方礙眼睛。
掃彼門庭誰有力，
隱人胸次自成情。
船橫野渡涵秋碧，
棹入蘆花照雪明。
串錦老漁懷就市，
飄飄一葉浪頭行。

The teeming world stands sharp and tall,
breaking free with no fixed shape, snagging the eye.
Who has the strength to sweep that gate and yard?
Hide it in your chest and it turns to feeling on its own.
The boat lies crosswise at the wild ford, steeped in autumn blue,
the oar dips through reed-flowers, bright as lit snow.
The old fisherman strings his catch and heads for market,
drifting, drifting, one leaf on the crest of the waves.

Pointer

Yunmen is the tenth-century master, a Five Dynasties figure famous for blunt, surgical one-liners, and here he is diagnosing spiritual diseases. "Your light not breaking through" means your awareness still has not cleared; even after you have seen that things are empty, a faint residue lingers, a vague sense of something out there you have not seen past. Then the "dharma-body," the term for ultimate reality or your true nature, the prize everyone is chasing, turns out to carry two sicknesses of its own. You can reach it and cling to it like a possession, a trace of "self" still parked at its edge, or you can break through and then go slack, letting it slide, and that limpness is a sickness too. The teaching is that there is no resting spot, not even at the summit. The opening riddle about a bodiless man swallowing medicine plants the same question up front: who exactly is the one getting cured?